Your Friendly Neighborhood Music Critic

Best Verse of March 2018: Esoteric – “Bomb Thrown”

There were some pretty decent contenders for the title this month, with records from PRhyme, former-winner Apathy, Mozzy, Roc Marciano, Lil Yachty, Logic, Bishop Nehru, and U-God, but even with all these releases and more, it’s hard to compete with a team-up like CZARFACE and MF Doom.

On CZARFACE Meets Metal Face, Inspectah Deck, Esoteric, and Doom rattle off verses over their classic, comic-referencing, Staten Island boom-bap sound, with the villainous undertones transferring over to themes of rap traditionalism. I’m never usually a fan of rappers saying what rap is, or calling out younger rappers for being wack, but maybe it’s just Esoteric’s imaginative wordplay and tug at the heart strings of this nerdy comic fan that made me love this verse on “Bomb Thrown.”

With references to Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, A Tribe Called Quest, and even Tennis-legend Stan Smith, Esoteric’s verse spins similes to stand for his prowess over the changing rap scene and what he believes to be the true class of hip-hop. With great lines such as “Geez, I teach but I kill them when the class on/So I got no pupils like Spidey with the mask on” and “I can’t think of the rhyme, it must be misplaced/It’s on the tip of my tongue like Stan Smith’s face,” I might not also believe in rap traditionalism, but I can agree that he’s a true wordsmith and rap lyricist.

[CZARFACE & MF Doom – “Bomb Thrown” Verse 2: Esoteric]
I be laughin’ at the beef as though I’m body-shamin’ exes
Only time you set-trip is when you binge on Netflix
Reckless, run it up like, “Eso, listen please
Alright I like the beat except the snare, kick and keys”
Geez, I teach but I kill them when the class on
So I got no pupils like Spidey with the mask on
Generally speaking, each rhyme is five star
Split personality, I ride with a side car
I can’t think of the rhyme, it must be misplaced
It’s on the tip of my tongue like Stan Smith’s face
Hold on – hmm, something ’bout a fly sound
And how you got no bars like a dry town, so pipe down
The beat bumps like bad skin
“Captain gonna teach stuff”, shout to Kraglin that’s the line, yo
Let the mind take you where the cameras can’t
It’s very necessary like a Q-Tip Grammy rant